Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-qsmjn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T00:33:13.576Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Meier, Reimarus and Kant on Animal Minds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2021

Jacob Browning
Jacob Browning*
Affiliation:
New York University
*
Email: jacob.browning@nyu.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Close attention to Kant’s comments on animal minds has resulted in radically different readings of key passages in Kant. A major disputed text for understanding Kant on animals is his criticism of G. F. Meier’s view in the 1762 ‘False Subtlety of the Four Syllogistic Figures’. In this article, I argue that Kant’s criticism of Meier should be read as an intervention into an ongoing debate between Meier and H. S. Reimarus on animal minds. Specifically, while broadly aligning himself with Reimarus, Kant distinguishes himself from both Meier and Reimarus on the role of judgement in human consciousness.

Keywords

Immanuel Kantanimal mindsconsciousnessreflectionH. S. ReimarusG. F. Meierperceptionjudgement
Type
Article
Information
Kantian Review , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , June 2021 , pp. 185 - 208
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Kantian Review

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allais, L. (2009) ‘Kant, Non-Conceptual Content, and the Representation of Space’. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 47(3), 383–413.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allais, L. (2015) Manifest Reality: Kant’s Idealism and his Realism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allison, H. (2015) Kant’s Transcendental Deduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ameriks, K. (1981/2000) Kant’s Theory of Mind. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Baumgarten, A. (1739/2013) Metaphysics. Trans. Fugate, C. D. and Hymers, J.. New York: Bloomsbury Academic.Google Scholar
Bennett, J. (1966) Kant’s Analytic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Burge, T. (2010) Origins of Objectivity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Callanan, J. (2020) ‘The Comparison of Animals’. In Callanan, J. and Allais, L. (eds), Kant and Animals (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 19–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Sá Pereira, R. (2013) ‘What is Nonconceptualism in Kant’s Philosophy?’. Philosophical Studies, 164, 233–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Descartes, R. (1984–91). The Philosophical Writings of Descartes Trans.. Cottingham, J., Stoothoff, R., Murdoch, D. and (vol. 3) A. Kenny. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fieldhouse, H. (2004). ‘The Status of Animal Minds in Kant’. Philosophical Writings, 25, 3–18.Google Scholar
Fisher, N. (2017) ‘Kant on Animal Minds’. Ergo, 4(15), 441–62.Google Scholar
Fodor, J. (2015) ‘Burge on Perception’. In Margolis, E. and Laurence, S. (eds), The Conceptual Mind (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), 203–22.Google Scholar
Ginsborg, H. (2008) ‘Was Kant a Nonconceptualist?’. Philosophical Studies, 137, 65–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Golob, S. (2016a) ‘Kant as Both Conceptualist and Nonconceptualist’. Kantian Review, 21(3), 367–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Golob, S. (2016b) ‘Why the Transcendental Deduction is Compatible with Nonconceptualism’. In Schulting, D. (ed.), Kantian Nonconceptualism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan), 27–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Golob, S. (2020) ‘What do Animals See? Intentionality, Objects, and Kantian Nonconceptualism’. In Callanan, J. and Allais, L. (eds), Kant and Animals (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 66–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grüne, S. (2014) ‘Reply to Colin McLear’. Retrieved from https://virtualcritique.wordpress.com/2014/08/20/reply-to-colin-mclear/.Google Scholar
Hanna, R. (2004) Kant and the Foundations of Analytic Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanna, R. (2006) Kant, Science, and Human Nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jaynes, J., and Woodward, W. (1974) ‘In the Shadow of the Enlightenment: II. Reimarus and his Theory of Drives’. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 10(2), 144–59.3.0.CO;2-Y>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, I. (1991–) The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant. Ed. Guyer, P. and Wood, A.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kemp Smith, N. (1918) A Commentary to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. London: Macmillan & Co.Google Scholar
Land, T. (2018) ‘Conceptualism and the Argument from Animals’. In Waibel, V., Ruffing, M. and Wagner, D. (eds), Natur und Freiheit: Akten des XII. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses (Berlin: De Gruyter), 1269–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leland, P. (2018) ‘Kant on Consciousness in Animals’. Studi Kantiani, 31, 75–107.Google Scholar
Leland, P. (2019a) ‘Kant and the Primacy of Judgement’. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 57(2), 281–311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leland, P. (2019b) ‘Kant, Organisms, and Representation’. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biology and Biomedical Science, 79, 1–10.Google ScholarPubMed
McLear, C. (2011) ‘Kant on Animal Consciousness’. Philosophers Imprint, 11, 1–16.Google Scholar
McLear, C. (2020) ‘Animals and Objectivity’. In Callanan, J. and Allais, L. (eds), Kant and Animals (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 42–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meier, G. (1750) Versuch eines neuen Lehrgebäudes von den Seelen der Thiere. Halle: Carl Hermann Hemmerde.Google Scholar
Naragon, S. (1990) ‘Kant on Descartes and the Brutes’. Kantstudien, 81(1), 1–23.Google Scholar
Onof, C. (2016) ‘Is There Room for Nonconceptual Content in Kant’s Critical Philosophy?’ In Schulting, D. (ed.), Kantian Nonconceptualism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan), 199–226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reimarus, H. (1756/1791) Abhandlungen von den vornehmsten Wahrheiten der natürlichen Religion. 5th edn. Tubingen: Frank & Schramm.Google Scholar
Reimarus, H. (1760) Allgemeine Betrachtungen über die Triebe der Thiere. Hamburg: Johan Carl Bohn.Google Scholar
Richards, R. (1979) ‘Influence of Sensationalist Tradition on Early Theories of the Evolution of Behavior’. Journal of the History of Ideas, 40(1), 85–105.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Riskin, J. (2016). The Restless Clock. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Thiel, U. (2011) The Early Modern Subject. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
van den Berg, H. (2018) ‘A Blooming and Buzzing Confusion: Buffon, Reimarus, and Kant on Animal Cognition’. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biology and Biomedical Science, 72, 1–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wheeler, M. (2008) ‘God’s Machines: Descartes on the Mechanization of Mind’. In Husbands, P., Holland, O. and Wheeler, M. (eds), The Mechanical Mind in History (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), 307–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wunderlich, F. (2005) Kant und die Bewußtseinstheorien des 18. Jahrhunderts. Berlin: De Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zammito, J. (2018) The Gestation of German Biology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar